


Back to you again

by orphan_account



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Angst, Established Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov, Eventual Otabek Altin/Yuri Plisetsky, Falling In Love, First Time, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, I'm Bad At Tagging, Injury Recovery, Katsuki Yuuri Needs a Hug, Kinda, M/M, Married Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov, Memory Loss, Minor Otabek Altin/Yuri Plisetsky, Pain, Phichit Chulanont Is a Good Friend, Pining Victor Nikiforov, Serious Injuries, Smoking, Supportive Victor Nikiforov, What Have I Done, don't do it kids
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-07
Updated: 2020-01-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:40:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22157173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Yuuri loses all memory of the last few years of his life, leaving his husband to pick up the pieces.Victor  is scared Yuuri will never love him again, now that he's at the end of his career as a skater.
Relationships: Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Otabek Altin/Yuri Plisetsky
Comments: 2
Kudos: 29





	Back to you again

It was a quiet night at the Katsuki household. All members were now inside, calf muscles aching from a hard day's work. Mother Katsuki tended to the others before settling herself underneath the warm table. Her husband kept one eye on the squat television in the corner, another on the knitting needles working themselves under his well-trained hands. The daughter sat hunched, cradling a beer bottle between her thighs as she watched the skaters jump and fizzle out - reception cutting for brief moments before returning again.

But there was another thing in the room there now. Two more, a sight unfamiliar a mere five years ago. Viktor, gray-haired and sleepy-eyed, held the last Katsuki in his arms. Yuuri felt his skin against him as though it were his own, but his eyes were bright and focused on the scene before him. He winced as a skater landed, knee flexing.

“He’s grown, hasn’t he…” muttered Mari.

“Too much,” said Viktor, opening his eyes. They twinkled, mouth twitching upwards. “It’s honestly a little frighting.”

“Big boy, hmm.” Mother Katsuki nodded, staccato English. Yuuri’s eyes didn’t stray, simply nodding.

He was as enraptured as he had been as a child.

Hiroko watched them together with her warm eyes, and she felt glad. Maybe it was strange to others. But the boy had never been happier than he was now, wrapped in his husband’s arms, watching late-night reruns of the performances he had missed while traveling.

Mari switched off the tv at the wall, feet clicking as she stretched. “Bedtime,” she mumbled. “Are you two heading downtown?”

Viktor squeezed Yuuri’s shoulder. “I think it’d be for the best. Early morning tomorrow.”

“Surrogacy stuff,” said Yuuri, shrugging. “It’s a long drive to Saga. We wouldn’t want to wake you.”

“She wants us there first thing in the morning.” Viktor explained.

Mari smiled, that half-smile from the corner of her mouth. “Alright. Don’t worry.” Viktor bit his lip. His husband let out a laugh. As Yuuri set about starting the car, Mari pressed a bottle of sake into his hands. “You’ll need it.” Her voice warned, winking.

Downtown. It was only a quick twelve minute drive past Hasetsu Castle, past all the family-owned stores and yellow town lights into an unlit path between the trees. Their home was nestled between evergreen pine, snug up against a rising slop of earth. From here, you could hear the sounds of waves, slipping up against the rocky shore. They’d take their morning runs up to the top, then hurtle back down to the beach below. When it was hotter, the two would take to the waves until their skin was sticky with salt and sand.

It smelled clean. It smelled like dog, iron and leather tinged. Human sweat, sweet skin, ever changing with the seasons. The autumn had left it’s hint upon the deck outside, molting leaves on wood. Yuuri would sweep it out when he had the chance, but Makkachin would bring bits and pieces of the outside world in their home regardless.

Autumn was impossible to escape.

The sun had set already. Some nights, they’d sit up and drink a cup of hot tea before bed. Viktor’s mouth stunk of homemade Hasetsu natto, and had to be forced to brush his teeth before Yuuri would kiss him. He snuck a quick kiss behind Viktor’s ear, the suggestion of perhaps something more. But the two men felt worn by the day. That particular suggestion would be left for a later day.

They set their alarm for the morning, settling down beneath the covers. Yuuri shuffled, distinctly unsettled. Twisting and turning thoughts in his head - so loud that his husband could practically hear the gears grinding.

“Yuuri…?”

“It’s so soon,” Said Yuuri. He’d known, before his husband had asked. His brow was cinched, the faint outline of him curled and twisted. “It’s not a yes, not yes yet.”

“Hey,” Said Viktor, frowning. “You were so sure, before.”

“I am sure!” Yuuri’s hands squeezed his. “I want kids. I… it just feels all too close now.” He sighed. “Everything we talked about before - it was all leading up to this. Us, a family of our own? It’s… it doesn’t feel like it’s going to happen.”

“We don’t have to do it all at once.”

“Are you sure _you_ want this?” Yuuri murmured. It cut something between them, shivering in the damp under-cover air. “Kids.”

“-Yuuri,” his voice fumbled. He had thought about it. Tossed the concept from one side to the other. Debated. Never with Yuuri. That felt too dangerous. To Yuuri, children felt like a natural extension. A bow tie at the end of their saga. Proof that _yes, they were a ‘normal family’,_ and that they were perfectly capable of raising normal, healthy, happy children.

And all of that was completely, utterly unfamiliar to Viktor. Normal and healthy and happy was nowhere near his experience. If he could raise children of his own, happy children, it was proof that he could be a father. It was proof he wasn’t broken.

But what was the price of failure?

“I’m nervous.” The admission felt dirty. If he wasn’t sure, what did that mean? Did he have to be 100% sure? How was he supposed to know how things would turn out? How’d he feel, especially in the first few months…

Shit.

“Me too.” Yuuri said. “I just… want to make sure we both want the same thing. At the same time. Especially this.”

“I do want a family,” He was now the one squeezing Yuuri. “I want us to raise a kid together.”

Yuuri looked at him. That face that threatened to strip him, down to his core. Examining his soul.

“Viktor - I know you’re scared-”

“I’m not scared-!” Nervous. Nervous, not scared goddamn it-

“Please, you need to tell me if this is something you really want.” His voice whispered, straining against the air. “I need to know. I can’t do this if we’re not on the same page.”

“Yuuri, I booked the appointment, I filled in the paperwork- I wouldn’t have done it if I wasn’t sure.” And yet, a little voice whispered back: _do you really know what you want_?

“Because you wanted it, or because you thought it would make me happy?”

“Both!” Viktor cried. He didn’t want to do this anymore, no more talking. It was late, his eyes hurt, and he hated - _hated_ \- fighting with Yuuri. Yuuri would cry again, he wouldn’t know how to handle it. He’d hold Yuuri, the urge within him to pull away. Comforting was hard enough, harder when Yuuri was angry at him. The words would come out wrong, distant hugs, frozen bones and stiff jaws.

“I want you to want this too.” He said quietly.

“We’d… we’d be in charge of an actual human Yuuri. Of course, I’m-” He made a gesture with his hands. Scared. He was scared. God, Yuuri knew he was, Viktor knew he was, why the hell was it so hard to say?

“And I’m with you.” Yuuri said. “Through all of it. I’m at your side.” Viktor’s heart tightened in his chest. “But don’t go through with this if you’re doing it to make me happy. This is for us, not just me.”

“I know.”

“Okay.”

A restless silence fell over the bed, an uneven pressure on his body. The odd twinge in his calf. The buzzing of the darkness. Occasional shifting of bones, joints in need of clicking.

“I’m awake.” Said a voice in the dark, warm and tired.

“Me too.”

“I hate this.” Yuuri pulled himself out of bed, a rush of cool air raising up goosebumps along Viktor’s legs. “I hate arguing with you. I’m going.”

“Alright.” Viktor said, clipped. “Do you-”

“No.” Yuuri cut him off. “Sleep. Sorry,” he sighed. His hand laced against his, the press of a warm ring against his palm. “I’m not mad. I swear. I love you Viktor.”

“I love you too, Yuura.”

“I’ll be back,” Yuuri said, leaning over to kiss him. Viktor felt like grabbing him, pulling him closer. Holding him there. It felt wrong to let him just leave, with all of this left up in between them. Like breathing through smoke. “Sleep. Please sleep.”

And then he was gone. The chug of the car engine faded into the night, and despite himself he felt his eyes grow heavy.

Yuuri would have been lacing his skates. Switching on the heavy buzzing lights, pulling the chill into his lungs. Skating this late always felt like entering the twilight zone, the enclosed box isolating one from the outside. He’d test the ice beneath his boot, stretch his legs. Felt that late-night tremor in his body, and start the music. This is how Viktor would imagine it afterwards.

Because nobody was there to see what happened. The memories were lost to time. A chunk that didn’t exist, except for what happened because of it.

At some point that night, Yuuri jumped.

His boot may have caught on the edge of the ice. Perhaps he smacked against the siding, a blood-curdling crack against the plastic. The back of his head was bloody, pressed against the ice, body splayed out and limbs limp.

At 4am, Viktor made his way uptown to the ice rink, and took his time too. Was it the time that took it all away, or was his Yuuri gone from the moment he hit the ice? These thoughts were tossed as he fumbled with his phone, struggling through his Japanese for someone to help him, help him as the pool of red spread across the ice.

The ambulance took fifteen minutes to get there, an operator urging him to keep his poor bleeding husband on ice.

And in the end, there was really nothing he could do but wait. Doctors moved in and out of his room, talking in hushed, clipped tones. Viktor saw red against white on the back of his eyelids, cursing himself for being so careless, for taking so much time, for trusting that things would be okay.

Cursing himself for hesitating.

His day was spent at Yuuri’s bedside, apologizing into his knuckles. Yuuri’s parents came, all tears and tight hugs. Mari’s lips were white, fingers twitching to the box of cigarettes in her pocket. Hiroko gathered herself at Yuuri’s side. Brushing his hair back. Staring.

Did she blame him?

“I tried,” he told her. “I didn’t know- he left without me. I should’ve been there with him-” The woman smiled gently, her warm figure wrapping his. She held him together as the tears began to trickle, thick down his burning cheeks.

*

Something was ahead.

A bright light. Dangled up in the distance. He’d felt it, coming in waves. A flash of red, white. Stinging lights that danced across Yuuri’s vision. Straining, he would reach up, but fell back. It was too much, too far away.

Things were different now. The light was piercing, almost painful. Too much for him to just reach up. Yuuri pulled back.

_Just let me sleep._

_Another here, drifting just past…_

I knew before I hit the ground that it would be too late.

_What an ominous admission. Why didn’t that scare him?_

_Just another hour._

And yet, he felt it grow closer.

His eyes opened, eyes screaming. The world was awash in white, and he blinked, trying to reach a hand up to his face. Where was he, why was it all so-

The world roiled around him, twisted violently. He heard it, a soul-deep _thunk!_ And then another…

“Yuuri-!” A voice cried at his side. Fingers curled around his, a rumble roiling in his chest. The hand felt thicker, like he was being clamped through layers of leather. The smell came in next, grease and surface cleaner - hospital smell.

“Wha-” he croaked, coughing phlegm. His throat was thick with it, coating the layer of his lungs. He coughed again - a tube lodged up in his chest. Yuuri’s hand reached up, curling around the plastic.

“No-” his hand was ripped away, held down by another. “No, Yuura please - can I get a nurse! Goddamn it,” Yuuri recoiled, straining against the hand. A breathing tube, a hand holding his- he needed to calm down but it was all too sharp, too bright.

“Aa-” he coughed again, eyes squeezed. Suddenly, the entire thing was tugged loose, lungs pulling in air so fast it hurt. His chest burned with a heat - a fiery pit of hot muscous where there should have been oxygen.

His eyes opened, heaving, the stench of blood in his mouth. There was a white hospital room, flowers to his right. Two chairs. A door to the left. A window.

He was wearing blue pants, mid-calf. His mind focused on the colors first. It was the easiest, the fastest thing for his mind to process. The color was familiar. The goosebumps against his cool skin were familiar. His head throbbed with heat - an ache that sat deep within his skull.

And a man, right in front of him. That man - he was holding his hand tightly, leaning forward to brush back his oil slick hair. “Yuuri-” he said, accented English, growing closer and closer still. His hair was silver, almost with a tinge of blue underneath these lights. “Yuuri,” he was grinning, sobbing, hands squeezing tighter. The wedding ring dug into his palm, cold and clammy with hospital sweat. “God, Yuuri - please say something.”

“Who…” His eyes widened, back stiffening. “Who are you?”

And just like that, the silver-haired man grew cold in his seat.

*

The smile dripped from his face. The eyes bored into his.

“Yuuri,” he laughed. “Yuuri, it’s me! Look, see?” He leaned closer. Yuuri didn’t want that. He didn’t want him any closer.

“I don’t… know who you are?”

The words hit him, a punch to the chest. He physically recoiled, eyes filling with tears. “Yuuri?”

“Please,” Yuuri felt himself pulling away, repulsed. “I don’t know who you are - or why you’re holding me, but I just need to know what happened to me.”

That had been an hour ago. The nurse read the room, sent a quick word for the shift manager. Viktor was soon after asked to leave. The nurse pointed at the heart monitor, and then at the door.

Panic attack.

His mother had come as quickly as she could, rushing into the room without a greeting which way. Currently, they were in the room together, speaking in hushed Japanese too quiet and too fast for Viktor to get a proper grasp of what they were saying.

This was a true shitstorm.

Yuuri hadn’t an inch of recognition in his eyes. How? How? The words kept spinning in his head. This didn’t make any sense - how did Yuuri not remember him? How could this have happened? Why Yuuri? Why him?

He didn’t want to think anymore. He wanted to call Yakov. He wanted Yakov here - someone to hold him the way he had been holding Yuuri. Someone to hold him the way Hiroko was holding his crying, panicked husband only meters away. Those meters seemed to stretch into eternity.

Where was the guidebook for this?

Was he supposed to stay here? Wait for his husband to reappear? Because, he hadn’t seen his Yuuri in those eyes. They were blank. Youthful. Apprehensive.

  
Scared.

Suddenly, the door swung open. Hiroko looked at him - up at him. He hadn’t noticed that he’d jumped out of his chair the moment he heard her step.

“He is okay.” She said, lifting a hand to calm him. “Yuuri - he is calm now.” She filled in the words she didn’t quite know in Japanese, corner of her mouth lifting.

“Can I see him?” He stepped forward, but her hand came up to hold him. Shaking her head, she held him back.

“No, Viktor. No. _Yamero_.”

He wanted to push her aside. Go in. Talk to Yuuri. If he could only talk, he could explain himself. Explain himself to Yuuri, make him see -

Quickly, he typed something up on his phone. Google translated, poorly spoken Japanese. He stammered, an admission of his desperation.

“ _Does he know me?_ ”

She understood. Her eyes softened, molten silver. Just like Yuuri’s. “No,”

*

Makkachin didn’t quite understand why his master was huddled up in blankets. The curtains were closed. A guilty bowl of ice cream had been left on the bedside table, which Makkchin had no problem licking clean.

It had been a long day like this. Two days in hospital had left him half living, his skin like a slip of rubber across his face. The world floated by as he drove down to their house - the house he was supposed to be sharing with his husband.

_I’m his husband,_ he had said. _I can see him, I am his husband!_

_Perhaps_ , replied the nurse. _But not in this country._ The words had come out, crueler than intended. _I’m sorry, Mr. Nikiforov._

Mr Nikiforov. Not Mr. Katsuki, or Katsuki-Nikiforov.

He’d been cut in two, right where he stood.

Makkachin licked his face. Viktor’s heart squeezed tight in his chest, aching. He wasn’t allowed back in Yuuri’s room. Not until he was permitted. His phone was in his hand. He checked every minute nearly, until he found himself drifting again. Set loose in an ocean of himself. Mari would call him. He knew. He’d been pacing. Her hand was pressed on his shoulder, and he was turned to face her. “Go home.” She told him. “Go. I’ll text you.” He was supposed to be resting. How could they expect him to rest? Not when the love of his life didn’t even seem to want him in the same room.

Twixt the thoughts, sleep eventually found him, restless and dreamless at midday.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! If you liked it, drop a kudos and/or comment down below! It's deeply encouraging.
> 
> Have a blessed day folks!


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